In Perspective: Focus on the gift of Christ as the true present

1 Corinthians 10:3131 So, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.

Christmas has always been a strange time for me.Growing up in a Jewish home, I loved Christmas.Thatmay sound strange on premise, but it was such a great time of year.We bought a tree shortly after Thanksgiving.The house was decorated with Christmas gear.As younger children we wrote our letters to Santa and circled items in the Sears catalog and toy store catalogs.As we got older we shopped and wrapped.We baked cookies, watched television specials, sang songs and enjoyed all the accoutrements of the Christmas season.

As I got older and started spending Christmas with people who were not Jewish, I noticed something strange.Their Christmas celebration was no different than ours other than some of them went to church on Christmas Eve.Same trees, same decorations (truth be told we didn’t have the little baby Jesus in a manger, but all the others were the same) same cookies, same circled catalogs and same songs.

And then I came to faith and it really threw me for a loop.When I came to realize what Christmas was really all about I was shocked on many levels.First, I was shocked to realize who Jesus really was.I was shocked to come to see with absolute certainty that the birthday that is celebrated on Christmas Day, is the birth of God in the flesh.I was shocked to come and see that it is only through that little baby’s life and death that people are able to be made acceptable before God.The baby whose birth we celebrate on Christmas Day is the greatest, most incomprehensible gift that humanity could ever fathom.It is the gift of forgiveness, restoration, salvation, righteousness, abundant life and eternal life.It is the gift that made a way so that we might live the lives we were truly made for; that we might live in an eternal relationship with God himself and know God.That we might be able to speak to God directly, approach God directly and spend eternity in sinless perfection with God enjoying him and his perfected creation forevermore.That is what Christmas was all about and that was wonderfully shocking to discover.

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And as I was blown away again and again by this truth I wondered how people could so cheapen this wonderful day?I wondered how it could get to a point where people who deny Christ and live as enemies of his, who will face the full and unadulterated wrath of God can so flippantly celebrate in apparent joy the one who they so clearly detest?And I wondered about those who call on the name of Christ of who I am one.I wondered how our celebrations became so similar to those who celebrate as enemies of our Savior.I wondered what I was to do with all the stuff I so used to enjoy and thought of as part of Christmas?What was I to do with the tree and the gifts and the cookies and the fat man in the red suit?Do I have to get rid of them all or can I enjoy them?

And that has been the tension I wrestle with.Why do I wrestle with it?Not for fear that God will be mad at me.Rather for fear that I will cheapen the joy that God desires for me to have as I celebrate the birth of my Savior.And after that rather long set up, what I want to share with you as we head into the Christmas season is what I have come to find over the years since I have come to faith.I hope you will be able to glean a bit of hidden wisdom from it so you might enjoy this Christmas Season in a way that would bring glory to God and joy beyond measure to you.

I began to ask three questions regarding all the stuff that comes along with Christmas.First, does this distract me from or draw me to why Jesus was born?Second, am I able to worship God in thankful and humble adoration by participating in this?Third, does this magnify Christ?

Take those questions and apply them to your tree.Apply them to your cookies.Apply them to your Christmas parties.Apply them to your shopping, your wrapping, your decorating and everything else that comes along with Christmas for you.As you apply and answer those questions, let those answers guide you.If the “stuff” can be used as a means to more fully worship Christ in a way that is pleasing to the Lord, enjoy it thoroughly and praise God for it.If it serves primarily to distract you from Christ, trust God with it and allow him to take it from you for a season.What you will find no doubt is Christ will once again become the center of your worship this Christmas season and this truly can be the best Christmas ever.

Give it a try.You’ve got about 2˝ weeks until Christmas.The options are to let the world distract you from the gift God gave to us, or to allow God to use so many things to focus you in on the gift that we celebrate, namely the birth of Christ.

May your Christmas season be truly wonderful and may you more fully realize how blessed we are to have come to know that baby who now lives at the right hand of God, who will return one day again.

— The Rev. Jon Tripp is the pastor of God’s Grace Bible Church in Downingtown. His column appears every other week in the Daily Local News. To contact him, call 610-441-2387 or send an e-mail to pastorjon@godsgracebible.org.